NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #33

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 February 2025 and was expected to last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It resumed on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July and then there will be 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing will end on 30 July.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February.
Access to view the hearing remotely was obtainable by sending an email request to [email protected] by 5pm on Wednesday 9 July. Detailed instructions were provided here:

drive.google.com/file/d/16-9POEZ7yHWUr6EmbfquJZO18Gv78bSm/view

The hearing is being live tweeted by x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005 and tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.ph/WSSjg.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Links to previous threads #1 to #29 can be found in the header of thread #30.

Thread 30: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375337-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-30
Thread 31: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375819-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-31
Thread 32: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376072-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-32

Wondering if any of those top 20 mumsnetters smokes a cheroot 😉 @Waitwhat23 .

As far as I can see they were trying to model their version/dream of an independent Scotland on Ireland. They saw how well Ireland was doing - they didnt have the economic freedom or being in the EU but the one thing they could do was to match Ireland's drive on gender. This was seen as important in attracting US investment - getting their ducks in a row for the day they did get Independence. Of course we know what happened...

I've seen this thing before, where a transperson joins an organisation and suddenly everyone is walking on eggshells. It's very curious.

Specifically I mean a TW - not saying this never happens with FtMs, but I've never seen it.

Everybody becomes very nervous, as if saying the wrong thing, or even looking like you might be thinking the wrong thing, might cause some meltdown where you find yourself in the firing line. It doesn't do anything for the working environment.

There was a thing in American media a few years ago, at the Vox website, where Ezra Klein ended up firing his co-founder and lifelong friend Matt Yglesias, because Yglesias - a very boring middle-of-the-road liberal - had politely suggested that the Democrats had become too extreme on genderwoo and if they wanted to win elections they should consider moderating their position. The TW on staff threw an enormous tantrum, demanded that Yglesias should be fired and denounced for his hatey hate, and Klein meekly complied.

I was thinking of this recently when Klein did a podcast interview with trans Congressperson Sarah McBride. The content wasn't that interesting, but I was fascinated by the tone. It was a bit like Pinky interviewing The Brain. I kept thinking - Klein is not speaking with McBride as a peer having a conversation, Klein is scared of transwomen and sees McBride as someone to be tiptoed around, buttered up and never challenged.

If that's the case for someone as privileged as Ezra Klein, I bet it applies to some NHS bureaucrat in Fife.

There aren’t enough in the rest of the UK either.

Got it, thank you.

Yes I know this is her suing him, but not for specifically lying about her endangering patients.

Because, to me, this is looking like the grim determination of several cohorts of women, all backing Sandie, to really nail it home. Motivation and money would not seem to be an issue.

And not letting upton get away with lying could be part of that.

Naomi Cunningham said if he's found to be lying, it could be career ending.

So if no regulatory body has the stomach to take him on, does Sandie have any other recourse?

OK; it's still weird grammar though. "Being peaked" and similar phrasing implies a passive thing, but climbing a mountain is an active process. As is changing your mind.

The in person observers had access to the 'bundle' In the the same way as the smoking gun KC email has been transcribed for 1.2 million people to view the notes from Sandie's disciplinary have been examined by the journos from the local paper.

Going back to NMC revalidation, I think so will be fine.

So much of what has gone on will be useful for reflective statements, cpd (i bet she's pretty clued up on some legal stuff related to employment and NMC codes than she was before) people have given written accounts of her work so she's got feedback too.

You don't have to be revalidated by your employer, just another NMC registered nurse so she has options to get support from a GC nurse to support her portfolio.

I think a lot of this could be made use of to demonstrate learning, reflection, growth etc.

Surely one of you Scottish Mumsnetters has a small child/Sunday League husband who could hurt their wrist/ankle and wind up at Victoria Hospital A&E for an XRay?

We need a proper floorplan It would be perfectly reasonable to ask one of the staff about changing arrangments.

I was so shocked rereading the timeline. Sandies solicitor sent a letter before action in March 2023, before they had received even a final draft of the Christmas Eve complaint. They had nothing formal on the patient safety issues at all.

They chose all of this.

Since a couple of people have mentioned it, let me clear up the cab rank rule. It applies in all cases, civil and criminal. Some people seem to think that it means you have to accept the first barrister (or advocate, but I'll stick to barrister for the rest of this post) available. That is the opposite of what it actually means. What it means is that you can choose any barrister you want and, provided your case is in an area where they claim expertise, you are willing to pay their standard rate and they are available, they must represent you. To put it another way, clients can choose their barristers, barristers cannot choose their clients.

The cab rank rule is not a bit of a myth as a previous poster suggested. It is precisely because of the cab rank rule that clients can choose the barrister they believe will be best for their case.

Climbers have verbed the word summit - as in “I summited Everest” or “what day did you summit?”. Peaked is a bit less awkward but the same construction.

Quite often people find themselves transported to the summit without ever setting out to climb the mountain. They just see that female swimmers not only lose medals to a male bodied person but that they have to share a changing room with him and he strolls about butt naked with an erection and wham they are atop the mountain without even thinking of putting on their hiking boots.

It is sort of passive, though, because usually people aren't looking for ways to blow this ridiculousness apart, if anything they usually start off inclined to be tolerant of it. But stuff keeps happening and happening and eventually something happens - three men on the medal podium for a women's Olympic sprint, a man being nominated for Best Actress, two men beating seven bells out of women in a women's boxing match and taking gold and silver, an overpaid idiot in a fluff role declaring under oath that she doesn't know what sex she is, a rapist in pink leggings with his cock bulging being sent to a women's prison...and you finally peak and think "Oh fuck off, I cannot pretend any longer, stop fucking insulting my intelligence!"

I'm getting tents too! 😮 But yes, I have just bought a tent.

Interesting contrast from the account of the account SP gave to her disciplinary about how she felt after the changing room incident, as reported in The Herald,

"I didn't feel comfortable speaking to the staff I was working with, especially as it was a personal and embarrassing matter. I was keen to go home, especially as it's Christmas Day, and discuss my upset with my husband and my family."
….
"I was left shaken following his response. It was on my mind throughout the shift, but I did not want it to impact my work."

Compare with DU’s response.

It's about people's gradual grasp of gender ideology being analogous to climbing a mountain. You slowly go up, each time something happens. Because the top is always where you're headed, however much you may not realise it to start with.

After days and nights freezing at various stages, and running out of sandwiches and distilled water, you finally realise it's just a men's rights movement and women are being oppressed, with the backing of all sorts of people who think it's marvellously progressive. You finally get to the top, the peak.

Unfortunately, as you get to the summit, you see the sun rising over an entire range of mountains ahead of you, disappearing into the distance.

Peaking is not necessarily a single journey.

There could be other litigation ongoing or to come. Back in February Sandie was called to the disciplinary just as the case adjourned and MG announced then that further action had started or may start?

Upton should face GMC investigation and that could potentially be triggered by public complaints since all this has taken place in plain sight. I believe they have already received a lot of complaints and will maybe receive more actionable complaints once the evidence is widely available to the public.

As a white man from a well-connected family, Upton will have some insulation from the consequences. But an emphasis on his behaviour bringing the profession into disrepute, and harming trust & confidence that women can ask for same aex chaperones/clinicians should be v worrying to the regulator, without Sandie needing to testify personally years down the line from now.

Right, for the benefit of people trying catch up, interesting stuff on p8 of this thread, with links to twitter and archive links.
<scrabble scrabble>

Yeah, this is the thing about why JR keeps appearing in these cases. As NC says, this sex/gender litigation turns on quite technical aspects of employment law, few barristers have that specialist expertise, and that's why you see the same counsel popping up in all these cases.

I don't know JR's personal views, but she's not getting these cases because she's the most passionate trans ally at the Bar. You could walk into Garden Court Chambers and bump into half a dozen passionate TRAs. She gets these cases because she's got that specialist knowledge, and ultimately you want a counsel who knows that area of law rather than an ideologue who'll make a political speech.

Can I ask a huge favour?
I have just been asked for a explanation of what has led up to this tribunal.
i really don’t have time to write it all out without missing meeting up
with family so could someone please share one of the articles of explanations from this thread?
if everyone else is in trouble for neglecting day to day life then I can do it later.☺️
Im keen to share as questioner works for a local trust.
Thank you!

Reading the Times piece and I’m struck by this paragraph.

An anonymous lawyer is quoted as saying ‘It would be extraordinary for an employer to seek to relitigate an issue on which its own internal process has cleared the employee’

But the ET is not trying to the claims of DU per se but that the claims and how they were dealt with, amount to harassment etc.

So whilst the lack of evidence supporting DU’s claims undermines their case - because finding that out should have happened as the first port of call rather than suspension - it doesn’t necessarily lead to a conflict of interests as both parties are equally denying that it amounted to harassment etc.

It is in both their interests equally for that to remain both their lines of defence.

I think it’s more nuanced.

Their defence has to demonstrate the actions were, if not reasonable, not harassment.

For DU this means that the claims had not been exaggerated or that he had not pushed others by his behaviour into making quick decisions that served only his interests.

For NHS Fife that means proving that they followed due process in response to his claims.

So their interests do still seem
aligned even with the Disciplinary Panel’s findings. They are both equally invested in presenting the argument that they did not discriminate or harass.

In the weeds of it, NHS Fife clearly discriminated and helped DU harass. It might be that the panel might find that DU didn’t discriminate but did harass - but I don’t know if it is possible to make distinct findings for joint respondents?

That's how it worked for me.

And Laurel Hubbard.

Ive said this before in these threads - I work in a university and trans members of staff are openly saying they will never use the gender neutral toilets as that would out them as trans. So far the university is trying its best to ignore the issue

Thanks so much for the link. That report is very illuminating.